By achieving improved search engine positions, your web site will become dramatically more VISIBLE to their prospects among the billions of pages available on the Web.

By dramatically improving your visibility in the major search engines, including Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, your site will be ranking well and driving traffic from the group of search engines that drive 92% of all search traffic on the Web.

The Complexity
Search Engine Marketing is a science. Through analysis of web usability, an understanding of colloquial semantics, a never-ending study of search engines’ ranking algorithms and constant success measurement and analytics, we’ve developed a system for achieving dramatic increases in qualified traffic to our clients’ web sites.

Why should you engage in a search engine strategy?
Well, good search engine rankings themselves do not make a company money.   A lot of senior managers get caught up with “Why isn’t our site coming up FIRST when I type in <<keyword>>?

The truth is, your goal is traffic.   GOOD, QUALIFIED, TARGETED traffic.   And although improved rankings in the search engines are a very significant means to this end (traffic), the rankings themselves are not a very effective measure for success.

The goals for an ROI-driven Search Engine Marketing strategy should be based on RESULTS. 

Results = greatly improved quantity of targeted traffic.

Your desire for results should go beyond just increasing traffic.   Let’s take a look at the typical web lead lifecycle…

The B-to-B Web Lead Lifecycle
In the B-to-C world, the objective is to convert a lead to a sale within minutes.  But when selling a complicated high-tech service often requiring an outside sales force, multiple decision makers in multiple locations, and a sales cycle ranging from 1-18 months, acquiring a new customer is a bit more of a complex process.

A typical prospect-to-customer lifecycle might be similar to the following:

1. Demand is Created (dissatisfaction with an existing vendor, a new product, startup company, etc.)
   
2. Research Begins (According to Forrester Research, more than 80% of all Internet users will use the major search engines like Yahoo, Google, and MSN to research products)
   
3. Prospects Begin Collecting Information.    Some will print web sites, some will add sites to their “favorites”, some will download white papers and success stories, and some will opt in to an electronic newsletter.
   
4. Hot “A” leads are educated, qualified and turned over to sales.    Those with an impending event, budget, and decision-making authority will now be handed to sales.  But considering, on average, only 2% of unique site visitors are “A” leads, it is important for marketing to pay close attention to a much higher quantity of “B” and “C” leads.
   
5. “B” and “C” leads are incubated.   When a warm (not hot) prospect raises his/her hand expressing interest, it is crucial to capture some key strategic data that can be used throughout the lead incubation process.  On the web, a quid pro quo exchange works well to obtain permission to market to individuals on a regular basis.  An offer for white papers or newsletters would require a prospect’s name, company, position and e-mail address. You would proceed with a curriculum of communications to B and C leads throughout the sales cycle.
   
6. Response Management is crucial.  As “A” leads contact you, and B and C leads become A leads, it is crucial for business rules to be in place for the proper qualifying and distribution of leads.  Why is it that 75% of all sales leads are not followed up on by salespeople?  In most cases, it can be attributed to lack of response management and salespeople becoming accustomed to receiving unqualified leads.
   
7. A percentage of “A” leads are converted to customers.  At this point, it is essential that you know the origin of every new customer.  If a new lifetime customer originated as a random web hit a year and a half ago from a search they conducted in Google, data should exist tracing this customer’s lifecycle each step of the way.  It is only through such solid data that an accurate ROI can truly be determined for each initiative.

Although the above illustrates 7 essential steps to eventually converting a lead into hard dollars into your organization’s wallet, many of these eventual customers can (and will) originate as a “researching” lead digging for product, service or company information in the search engines.

Learn about eMagine's Search Engine Marketing services here.